SPENDING BILL PASSED BY HOUSE

Dorothy Collin, Chicago TribuneCHICAGO TRIBUNE

Congress pushed toward adjournment Wednesday as the House passed by a vote of 235-172 a half trillion-dollar spending bill that is needed to keep the federal government running for the next fiscal year.

The omnibus $576 billion measure is the largest money bill to ever move through Congress. The Senate is expected to consider the legislation Thursday. The bill, called a continuing resolution, not only funds government activities but also provides $100 million for the Nicaraguan contras, gives an additional $200 million to the Philippines and appropriates $1.7 billion to fight drug abuse.

Although the government technically ran out of money at midnight when short-term funding legislation expired, administration officials said they would open for business as usual Thursday and then decide what to do as the Senate worked on the long-term resolution.

The administration has made consistent veto threats about various parts of the bill for weeks, but most of the objections have been met. Officials said Wednesday night that they would wait to see the final version approved by the House before deciding whether they would recommend a veto.

Before taking up the spending bill, the House approved 232-173 a landmark rewrite of the nation`s immigration laws. The bill, which would give legal status to millions of illegal aliens already in the United States and would prohibit employers from hiring illegals in the future, now goes to the Senate for final action.

Earlier, the House and then the Senate gave final approval to a compromise authorizing $291.8 billion for the Pentagon for fiscal 1987. The actual money to be spent by the military is included in the omnibus spending bill still under consideration.

Both the defense and spending bills contained arms control provisions that were considerably weaker than had been proposed by the Democratic-controlled House, but were stronger than the President or the Republican-controlled Senate originally wanted.

Among the provisions was non-binding language calling on President Reagan to continue to observe the numerical limits of the unratified SALT II agreement. The treaty, which would have expired by now anyway, has taken on symbolic importance in the battle over arms control. Reagan has said he does not feel bound to continue to observe its limits.

Another provision in both bills is a compromise on the funding level for Reagan`s Strategic Defense Initiative, known as ''Star Wars.'' The President had requested $5.3 billion for fiscal 1987, but the defense agreement calls for $3.5 billion.

Overall, the $291.8 billion is $28.2 billion less than Reagan requested in his budget for defense and represents a sharp restraint on the

administration`s military build-up.

The administration, however, is expected to go along with spending levels agreed to by House and Senate negotiators.

Although some of the stronger arms-control advocates in the House were unhappy about the compromises, especially after they felt they had been forced to cave in before the Iceland summit last weekend, Democratic leaders kept them at bay during debate over the defense bill.

But Rep. Les Aspin (D., Wis.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said the arms control issues should be put off for the next few months.

He added, however, that ''the issues will not go away. We will revisit them next year.''

The continuing spending resolution is slightly above the level called for in the fiscal 1987 budget resolution because of the funds added for the drug bill. But congressional leaders were confident they would have no problem meeting the deficit goals set by the Gramm-Rudman-Hollings budget-balancing act.

The leaders were still trying to negotiate a compromise on another bill that would implement about $12 billion in savings and help meet the deficit target. If the 1987 deficit is under $154 billion, then Congress and the President can avoid automatic, across-the-board cuts in both domestic and defense spending.

Congress and the White House also were trying to find a way to avoid a veto confrontation over legislation to reauthorize and finance the Superfund program to clean up toxic waste dumps.

The administration does not like a tax provision that would help fund the $9 billion program for the next five years, but congressional leaders insist it is the only acceptable way to come up with the money.

Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R., Kan.) was circulating a letter among his colleagues Wednesday that would pledge not to expand the tax next year, hopefully meeting one of the administration`s objections.

If Reagan should veto the Superfund legislation, many members of Congress appear willing to stay in session until the beginning of next week to try to override the veto and to keep the President from killing the bill with a pocket veto.